


Sit and I'll Tell You

by Takopoke



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Kidfic, M/M, Magic, Space War, War, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-01
Updated: 2016-10-01
Packaged: 2018-08-18 20:01:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8174215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Takopoke/pseuds/Takopoke
Summary: He's barely able to correctly write his own name then, sloppily drawing the straight lines and sharp flourishes of 'city' and 'cure'.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I did this really late and I'm really sorry, but I really wanted to go to H-Mart.

Keiji is six when the sparks start shooting out of his fingers. He's barely able to correctly write his own name then, sloppily drawing the straight lines and sharp flourishes of 'city' and 'cure'. He hides it from his parents and only shares it to the neighborhood cat when it stops at his house for the milk dish his dad always leaves out. It doesn't have a name, but he's heard the children from down the street call it Nekoma when he draws in the sandbox with them at the playground, pensively writing his last name in the sand, and listening as they babble about the dinners they had last night, making 'vroom vroom' sounds to imitate the supply trucks as the plow over their makeshift hills.

A lot of those times, he hopes his father comes home soon. Sometimes, Keiji thinks he never will, the fighter jets that cross over his home every minute are always departing, never landing. He digs his index finger harder into the sand, the small grains sticking to the sweat and clammy of his small hands. 

Keiji is seven when he starts primary school, his dad gushing over the white bow tied loosely at his neck and his banana yellow hat. If he looks up all the way when he's walking to school, he can see the embroidering of his name, carefully stitched in with every whisper of a spell. His dad walks him up to the street where it splits into two and waves goodbye slowly, always a smile on his face, and dark half moons under his eyes. Sometimes, if they walk fast enough, he can see the students from the academy, seven like him, with a crisscrossed circle embroidered onto the blue blazers of their uniforms. 

Sometimes he is jealous of them, the red tint that covers their cheeks and bright shines in their eyes speak in contrast to Keiji's quiet home, where it's only his dad and it's him. It's been only his dad and him since he was six, scratching his name into the sandbox.

Keiji is eight when the Magic Academy is hit with a missile. It rocks the building of his elementary school, shattering the windows and moving the desks. Sparks shoot out of him as he crouches low under his desk and thinks about the tired smile his dad carries and the blue uniform in his parents' closet, kept pristine and dust free. Classes are already over by then, it's just him and the drowning sun left in the elementary classroom. He hears the wails of sirens rushing past the school distantly, legs shaking as he carefully stands back up. Even then, the calamity of war hangs heavy in the air though Keiji is too young to understand the complexities surrounding the battle roving just past the rings of Jupiter. His dad cries when Keiji meets him where the road splits into two. There is a bustle in their normally placid neighborhood, people stand outside of their homes, staring at the black plumage that rises high above the trees. He kisses Keiji on the side of his cheek and holds him close as he sobs into the cotton knit of his jacket. His dad's eyes are ringed red as they slowly walk home, his hand held tightly as another ambulance rushes past them on the street. His dad makes nanohana that night with agedashi tofu. His nose wrinkles at the texture of the tofu, but he continues to chew, swallowing the dish reminiscent of his father. His dad sleeps next to him that night. He sneaks in when Keiji is half asleep, drifting between consciousness and sleep. He feels the soft touch of his dad's lips to his forehead and the soft humming of a lullaby he never learned the words to. 

Keiji is ten when his father returns home, face ghostly pale from the lack of sunlight, dark hair cropped short, wrinkles on his face from scrunching up his eyebrows. Keiji can never remember a time his dad was happier, cheeks constantly covered in red as a reminder of the laughter that eventually followed. He's hidden between the sunflowers, shooting the sparks out from his fingertips when his father catches him with a wide eyed look. His parents share a long conversation after that, quick whispers that can't quite reach Keiji's ears as he pets Nekoma who sleeps on the steps of his front porch, grown old and feeble in the years. He goes back in the house when his hears his father sharply call his dad's name. His dad cries at the kotatsu table, hands in his face. Keiji wiggles between his father and the table, carefully wrapping his arms around his dad, hoping to provide some sentiment of comfort. His dad cries even harder and Keiji wonders what he's done wrong, questioning if it was wrong of his to wish for his father to come back from the war for just a little bit.

He stops going to school and starts lessons with a woman in another city named Akaashi. She smells like dried herbs and her hands are stained a permanent brown with chalk ash stuck underneath her fingernails if Keiji looked closely. On the first day, she makes him shoot sparks out of hands and gives him a cookie and a pat on the head for a good job. On the second day, she teaches Keiji how to grow herbs and on the third day, they circles. Endless circles that looped forever and forever on. Then he goes home and his father teaches him how to hit a ball so high up that it becomes just a dot in the sky. His dad laughs from the porch, carefully weaving words into paper and clothes. Keiji's cheeks tint pink and his eyes are bright.

Keiji is eleven when his father leaves again, getting on one of the fighter jets and zoom over his house, always departing, never arriving. His dad squeezes his shoulder and Keiji watches as he tries not to cry. He learns that war is a gruesome thing. Another school is bombed that night as the news films, their TV occasionally flickering in and out. He has to recite herb names and their functions aloud in order to fall asleep that night, his dream rocking like he's in elementary school again.

Keji is twelve when his mind goes fuzzy for a moment, blurring on the edges before the time when he was six shows up, vivid and curious as golden sparks fizz at his fingertips. Just as quickly, the image disappears and he's back in his chair, head slumped over the table and Akaashi's weathered hands are shaking him. He's sent home early that day to his dad asleep on top of the couch, a photo album upon his chest. A picture falls out when he moves the photo album to the floor. It's am image of his parents and two other people. He recognizes the shorter man, a picture of his Uncle Kenma sits on a shelf in the living room. But he doesn't recognize the second man, hair flecked black and white, spiked up in an almost obnoxious way. He flips the photo and reads the date, a number almost twenty years ago. “Hajime, Me, Kenma, Koutarou” Keiji carefully slips the photo back into its sleeve.

Keiji is fourteen when he accepts the fact that his father is dead. His dad doesn't tell him, but he knows. Knows that the things he dreams at night aren't memories. It's much more complicated than that. The government of every country lowers the military age to sixteen. Regular soldiers would have been drafted, but Keiji isn't a normal person, much less a normal soldier. Military members in their green uniforms and heavy boots go to his house weekly to try to convince his father to enroll him into cadet training. Their side is losing. Nobody talks about it, afraid that it might jinx their victory in the grand scheme of things, but everybody knows that they can't jinx it. Without a doubt, they will lose in the end and everything will be for nothing. He enrolls himself into cadet training, forging his dad's signature and slides it under the glass at the cadet academy. Akaashi gives a tired smile as she cups her wrinkled hands around his face. There's nothing more that she can teach him and she somberly offers her last name for him to take, an indication of his mastery in magic. 

Keiji is sixteen when they deploy him out into the field. He can't kill with magic like the others, can't gain an offense for a win, so they stick him into the medical ship, grinding herbs and reciting spells to knit skin. They are the last of their garrison, all the others have been destroyed or taken prisoner. He holds onto the hand of the bleeding woman a little tighter. The lines around his eyes blur a little more, flickering back to memories of when he was seven and starting primary school. Someone pulls him away from the woman by the back of his uniform, squeezing him in an escape pod with sixteen other people. Someone screams as they start their hurdle towards Earth. He digs his fingernails a little harder into his hands and thinks about what he has to do once he gets out. 

Keiji draws endless, endless circles and plucks herbs from his garden. He takes a deep breath, he has to. He starts to whisper, endless circles dancing in light and herbs bleed deep green down the chalk he's drawn.

He has to go back.

**Author's Note:**

> find my ass at tako--poke.tumblr.com/


End file.
